On July 4th, 2006, I embarked on a quest to become the pre-eminent American portrait painter of the 21st century. This blog chronicles that journey. With apologies to Joan Didion, I call it THE YEAR OF MAGICAL PAINTING.

Monday, October 08, 2007

3:10 to Yuma

I caught the 3:10 to Yuma earlier today. Odd, because I thought it was the 2:55 for sure. Maybe the discrepancy was, in fact, social commentary--a reference to the annoying gap between the time they say the movie is in the newspaper (as if they ever even give times in newspapers anymore) and when it actually starts.

Or, perhaps, the scheduling was done by the same people who decided last year to air "Friday Night Lights" on Tuesdays. One of my favorite shows--although this season's first episode, shown last Friday night, suggested that it may have only taken one season plus one episode to jump the shark.

A general rule of thumb is that whenever, during the course of a given television show, teenagers kill someone by accident and then choose to toss the body off a low-lying bridge (as opposed to calling either a responsible adult or the cops), this bodes poorly for the general creative energy of the show. It was suggested during the off-season that the show was renewed at a lower budget. This means less football/stadium action with hundreds of extras. Cheaper, by a wide margin, is having two of the characters drive an '82 Chevy wagon to the middle of a bridge and toss some big lumpy thing off the edge.

It's three shots, really. Tossing the lumpy thing off the bridge. Cut to the rushing water. Cut back to the two kids embracing, one of them with a far-away look in his/her eyes.